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About this lesson
What do you want your audience to do? And why should they listen?
Quick reference
Motivate Your Audience to Take Action
Before you choose your story, get crystal clear on the message you want your audience to remember — and what action you want them to take.
Why We Tell Stories in Business
- The goal of storytelling in professional settings is not just entertainment — it’s persuasion.
- A great story on its own won’t help your business or cause unless it’s connected to a clear, compelling message.
- Your message must drive action: hire you, invest in you, donate, approve, support, or buy.
Message Before Story
- Before you choose your story, take a step back and ask:
- What do I want my audience to do?
- Can I express that goal in one clear sentence?
- Once you define the action, identify the messages that will motivate your audience to act.
Motivation Matters
- Not every fact or result will move people — avoid data dumps like "29 bullet points from 89 cities."
- Instead, brainstorm multiple messages that could resonate with your audience.
- Think about what matters to them, not just what’s important to you.
- 00:04 Let's not forget the real reason we're telling stories in business presentations, professional presentations, is to communicate messages.
- 00:12 This section will give you a few more tips on how you can really narrow down your messages so you know you're on the right track because a great story in and of itself doesn't really help your business, your cause.
- 00:24 A great story that communicates a message, but the message doesn't resonate with your audience.
- 00:30 That doesn't help you either.
- 00:33 Of course, this course is about storytelling, but it's storytelling for an objective, to help you communicate a message.
- 00:40 Anytime you're communicating to an audience for business, professional reasons, civic reasons, it's typically because you want the audience to do something, vote for you, invest in you, donate to you, give you money, hire you.
- 00:58 Your story is going to be a critically important component to that.
- 01:03 But you got to take a step back before you figure out the stories and ask yourself, once you've narrowed down in one sentence what it is you want the people you're speaking to to do now, you got to ask yourself what possible reasons might motivate them to do that.
- 01:22 What messages will motivate your audience to take the actions you want?
- 01:30 It's not going to be 29 bullet points from Slide 3 on all your sales results from 89 cities over the last six months.
- 01:40 That's typically not going to be the message that will push your audience over the edge to do what you want.
- 01:49 So before you worry about stories, you've got to ask yourself what's every possible message that you could use to get your audience to do something you want them to do.
- 02:05 So at this point, I need you to transition away from some of the earlier stories where you're just talking about some aspect of your life.
- 02:11 And now think about something you're trying to communicate at a professional level.
- 02:16 Think of a professional speech audience message.
- 02:21 And now motivate every possible message that you could have to get an audience to do what you want.
- 02:30 Think of all the messages, brainstorm them, and figure out what the motivations are for your audience.
- 02:36 Write them all down.
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